


the forest, dark and deep

by Evandar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25694590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: Lucius and Xeno reunite after a summer apart.
Relationships: Xenophilius Lovegood/Lucius Malfoy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33
Collections: Creature Fest 2020 - Quarantine Creature Comeback





	the forest, dark and deep

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to R for her work as beta, and to the mods for having such a cool, laidback idea for the fest this year.

It takes longer than he would have liked for Lucius to get away from his Housemates. The Welcoming Feast had dragged, and his prefect duties had stretched on longer than he’d expected. Still, he’d volunteered for the first patrol while on the train, and it provides him with a good enough excuse to slip out of the common room and out of the school, down towards the looming shadow of the forest.

Xeno is already waiting for him. He’s sitting in their usual spot, by an ancient monolith just beyond the treeline, in a hollow where the forest meets the lake. The stone is massive, swamped with moss and ivy, and there’s a fallen tree at its base that’s been there for years. Xeno’s using it as a seat. He has a book open in his lap, and his wand lit with a _lumos_. His long hair is tangled up into an unruly bun, loose strands curling around his ears and neck, held mostly in place with pins Lucius bought him last year. Surrounded by moss and mushrooms and the shadows of moths fluttering in the wand-light, he’s fey-lovely. Lucius sometimes wishes that Xeno _was_ fey, and that one day he’d steal him away to the gloom of the courts.

He’s spent his summer wishing for it.

Xeno looks up when a twig snaps beneath Lucius’ boot. He smiles brightly and closes his book, tucking it back into his satchel. He stands, absently dusting off his robes as Lucius crosses the remaining few feet between them.

As always, they arranged their meeting at the end of the previous school year. As always, there’s a knot behind Lucius’ breastbone that tells him that this is their last one – that yet another summer without communication is too much; that Lucius is too dark, too tainted by his father’s cruel ambitions; that Xeno is, despite his strangeness, too good for him. As always, there’s a fluttering in his belly as Xeno proves his insecurities wrong and reaches out to pull him close.

He presses his face into Xeno’s shoulder and inhales. His boyfriend smells of ink and parchment and woodland. He’s _missed_ that scent; missed the warmth of Xeno’s arms and the taste of his kisses. It’s unbearable, and Lucius squeezes his eyes shut and tightens his grip on Xeno’s robes, trying to preserve the moment for longer. A warm hand rubs down his spine. He exhales, breath shuddering as the tension he’s been carrying all summer starts to ease. He lifts his head. Xeno is smiling at him, sweet and kind as always, but there’s a sadness in his eyes that Lucius hates more than anything. 

It’s not _fair_. It’s not fair that they have to sneak around in dark forests and cut off all communication for months at a time. It’s not fair that somehow, despite being brilliant and handsome and gifted with the Sight and a pureblood from a good family, Xeno still isn’t considered _good enough_. If it was up to Lucius – if he was allowed to be himself instead of his father’s perfect heir – then he’d scream their love from the top of the astronomy tower, propriety be damned. He’s everything Lucius wants in life, and everything his father should be willing to permit him. And still, they have to hide. They have to be subtle. 

It’s killing them both, he knows. The sadness, the secrecy. It’s killing them slowly, but just as surely as his father would if Lucius let the slightest hint of their relationship slip.

His father isn’t here. He’s in Wiltshire, at the manor, courting favours from his precious Dark Lord. 

_Screw them both_ , Lucius thinks viciously, and he leans in for a kiss.

It’s…wonderful. Perfect. Soft and sure and so loving that Lucius finds himself moaning into it. Kissing Xeno makes him feel like he can breathe again; like he’s a _person_ again, instead of just Heir Malfoy. He loses himself in it, in the woodland smell of Xeno’s hair and the gentle caresses of his lips and tongue. He could do this for hours. He has plans – fantasies he’s spent the summer tentatively nurturing behind his occlumency shields – for more than just kisses. Not now, but soon. Sometime this year. He’ll smuggle himself into Ravenclaw, if he has to.

For now, he simply enjoys it: the slide of Xeno’s tongue against his own, the gentle tug of his fingers in his hair. The gentle smile he receives when they break apart – sweet and caring and more than Lucius deserves.

“Come on,” Xeno says. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Lucius nods. He follows Xeno deeper into the forest, with only a pair of _lumos_ charms to light their way. His boyfriend’s steps are as sure as they’ve ever been – Xeno knows the forest better than anyone except, perhaps, the groundskeeper and his apprentice, and the creatures who live in it. He guides Lucius with a sense of surety: his fingers warm where they’re curled around his wrist. Lucius is not so gifted. With minimal light and the press of trees close around them, he has no idea where they are or, for that matter, where Xeno is leading them. He _thinks_ Xeno is taking them away from the lake, that their path is curving away to the right, down towards the school gates. 

He has no idea. It’s quite exciting, trusting someone, after the summer he’s had.

Xeno brings him to a halt at the edge of a clearing. “There,” he whispers, and pulls Lucius gently so that they’re standing shoulder to shoulder.

Lucius sees nothing at first. They haven’t lit their wands very brightly, and despite the break in the trees, the forest seems to swallow all light. But then he sees the reflection of white eyes gleaming back at him. His breath catches.

He’d noticed the sudden appearance of winged horses to pull the carriages as soon as he’d got off the train. He hadn’t paid them too much attention, then, too distracted by Rookwood’s insistent attempts to bring Crabbe and Goyle up to speed with Transfiguration. He’d been aware of dark skin and skeletal bodies, but he’d shrugged them off as a novelty. Something that Dumbledore thought the school just _had_ to have. 

With Xeno at his side and the forest pressing in around them, they’re a lot harder to ignore.

One of them approaches. Its wings flare and rustle as it walks towards them, near silent on the soft ground. The wings are bat-like, missing the elegant plumage that Lucius associates with the Abraxans at home. He’s aware of his heart pounding somewhere near his throat as the horse studies them. It has _scales_ instead of fur, and its skin clings close to its bones. The light of their wands gleams on long, sharp teeth as it opens its mouth to make an eerie, haunting cry that makes the hair on the back of Lucius’ neck stand on end. It stamps a hoof, rustles its wings again, and then ducks its head closer. Xeno lifts the hand that’s still curled around Lucius’ wrist in response, and he brings Lucius with him as he touches it.

The scales are surprisingly soft and warm, despite being a far cry from the velvet noses of his Abraxans.

“What -?” Lucius starts, his voice little more than a breath.

“Thestrals,” Xeno says. “People think they’re unlucky because you can only see them when you’ve seen someone die.”

Lucius twitches. He… He’d seen, this summer, some of the depravity to which the Knights of Walpurgis were willing to delve. His father had shrugged off the lives lost as being those of Muggles, barely more than animals, and Lucius had known from the look in his eye not to press. Not to ask _why_. Not to ask what the point in torture, death and mayhem was when they already _knew_ their own superiority by virtue of having magic.

His father enjoyed it. The Dark Lord enjoyed it. And so it was.

He feels slightly sick. He rests his head against Xeno’s shoulder and watches as his boyfriend pets the thestral with their joined fingers. He doesn’t resist. He doesn’t ask, either, who Xeno watched die. He already knows the answer.

He doesn’t ask how Xeno knew about his summer, either. 

“They’re very misunderstood,” Xeno says. “Seeing death… it changes you, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing, I think. It’s more what you do with it.”

Lucius hums softly. It’s the sort of response he should have expected from a boy who peered into his own teacup in third year Divination and shrugged off an omen of great loss. _“Oh, I know about that, and I’ll miss him a lot when he’s gone, but no one can stay forever. And he’ll be happier, so it’s alright.”_

Xeno has always been the more matter of fact one out of the two of them.

“My father wants me to take the Dark Lord’s mark,” he says. “He wants me to join their… activities. Next summer.”

He’ll still be a year away from graduation, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Nor does it seem to matter that a great and noble Dark Lord shouldn’t be so fixated on recruiting schoolboys, or that Lucius doesn’t actually _want_ to become a murderer.

He wants to ask his future, but knows from experience that Xeno will never tell him. He has to decide things for himself.

The thestral nickers. It takes a step towards them, leaning into their petting. Something associated with something so terrible shouldn’t be so gentle, Lucius thinks, or so friendly. He slides his hand up the length of its nose to rub between its eyes like he would do to the Abraxans. It allows the touch, blowing hard from its nostrils and pressing into his hand.

“I’m going to refuse,” Lucius says. He’s seen too many monsters beneath the pureblood masks of his father’s friends, and has no desire to become one of them. There are escape plans, half-formed, swirling in his mind, but he knows in his heart that this is the only way he’ll get to keep Xeno like he so desperately wants.

Xeno presses a gentle kiss to his hair. “I’m glad,” he whispers.

Lucius closes his eyes and feels the last of the summer’s tension leave him. “So am I,” he says.


End file.
